Don't convert your SVX to RWD - Page 4

SVXelerator · #46 11-17-2006, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberRoo

The rear differential appears to have no limited slip characteristics whatsoever. I'm disappointed with it. Heavier wheels would have some inertia to help prevent differential speeds and also to help make modulating wheel speed easier. Some of those hefty Mitsubishi would be nice, but I like my ride quality. I wonder if it's possible to tighten up the differential. Does anyone know?

viscous....no chance.....try a 180 rear with gears to match your trans....

TomsSVX · #47 11-17-2006, 08:41 PM

If it is RWD, it doesn't matter what the gear ratio in the rear is... The 3.90 in the R180 will also provide you with a better ratio than the 3.54 anyway...

Tom

SVXRide · #48 11-18-2006, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

If it is RWD, it doesn't matter what the gear ratio in the rear is... The 3.90 in the R180 will also provide you with a better ratio than the 3.54 anyway...

Tom

Tom,
did the R180s you put in your car and in Kerry's come out of STis? Do you need to get the axles with the diff, or will the SVX axles work?
-Bill

SomethingElse · #49 11-18-2006, 04:32 PM

I started my rwd project today. man I wish I had a lathe

I must have spent an easy 3 hours grinding the crap out of the gear with my cheezy harbor freight special grinder that bogs down with the slightest of pressure. afterwards, I blew so much metal out of my nose it was like a shotgun shreding through the tissues. atleast the hardparts done. The front diff was blown out from lack of gear oil from the dum dum who rebuilt 3k miles ago. I went to drain it and got 3 pieces of pinion gear and no fluid, there was no signs of leakege either. Still need to figure out how to seperate the end of axle so i can keep the front bearings together.

p.s. Bill, Im pretty sure you need the r-180 axles

TomsSVX · #50 11-18-2006, 10:03 PM

don't forget... you speed sensor is hooked up to the front diff... I hope u want to know how fast u r going

Tom

SomethingElse · #51 11-19-2006, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

don't forget... you speed sensor is hooked up to the front diff... I hope u want to know how fast u r going

Tom

I thought about that and ponderd the idea of one in the rear diff. I cant really use the front, the pinions f***ed up bad. I doubt i can tap into the output shaft speed sensor or whatever it is in the back...wonder how to keep the CEL off too if i dont hook it up?

huck369 · #52 11-19-2006, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SomethingElse

I thought about that and ponderd the idea of one in the rear diff. I cant really use the front, the pinions f***ed up bad. I doubt i can tap into the output shaft speed sensor or whatever it is in the back...wonder how to keep the CEL off too if i dont hook it up?

You could probably use a position sensor and a magnet on the drive shaft like some aftermarket cruise control system use, as the SVX is already a digital Speedo, it would just take some adjusting to get the speed right.

SomethingElse · #53 11-19-2006, 03:59 PM

Well its done! I guess 3 chunks of pinion gear are next to each other becuase park does not park

I even pulled it apart again to make sure i put it back together right. The stupid trans is dying

but its fun to do partial dougnuts in the culda-sac thingee. Huck, I forgot about those

I was going to use one when i converted my 87 SS aerocoupe to a digital dash.

UberRoo · #54 11-21-2006, 06:06 PM

SomethingElse, I used the exact same method to remove my gear teeth, including the use of a cheap Harbor Freight grinder. I carefully masked the bearings and just let the shaft spin from the disk grinding against it. I have a lathe, but those gear teeth are *hard*. Grinding was the right way to do it.

Depending on if the sensor is somewhere around the actual differential itself or on the pinion shaft, it'd be possible to remove the ring gear, or grind off the teeth back in the transfer housing. Either the front wheels would turn the differential, or the transfer gears would turn the pinion to provide a speedo signal. ...a little late for you at this point, though.

I'd sure love to have a Lincoln-locker for a few days. : ) Not gonna happen though. Not yet, anyway.

SomethingElse · #55 11-21-2006, 08:36 PM

HAHA harbor freight rules!! Im never going to get rid of that gear ive got to much labor in it

I only used 5 nails (dowels) in the clutch pack but i know its the tranny thats slipping because it slips way worse in reverse. I was really dissapointed about the whole park issue. only the front wheels would keep the car from rolling after this converstion.

intellibomb · #56 11-28-2006, 11:34 AM

(Sliding sideways down the center of the road with the brakes locked up is far preferable to rolling with the ABS right off the side and into a ditch.)

word....
i went into a ditch bcuz my damn car was stuttering from abs so bad it wouldnt stop... i would have rather skidded for sure as well...

damn svx abs.

UberRoo · #57 01-26-2009, 06:52 PM

Update:

About six months ago I blew up my rear differential. It started making noises a week prior. A couple days before death I got a slight vibration, and then it suddenly got very bad climbing a hill. I drove about a 1/4 mile with my butt tingling from the vibration, and about a hundred feet with my tooth fillings coming loose.

I took it apart and found the pinion gear to be almost completely toothless while the ring gear looks like it hasn't seen a dentist in a while.

I have a spare differential, but I've been putting off the repair. During this SVX hiatus, I've come to appreciate vehicles with trunk space and RADAR immunity. I miss going fast and lookin' good doing it, but I've relegated the SVX to an exclusive Sunday driver. ...whenever I finally fix her.

I've been nothing but abusive to the SVX, so I suspect that's a factor, but I also suspect the SVX's rear differential just isn't up to the task of putting power to pavement all by itself. I figured that was the case when I went RWD, but this seems like a rather empirical affirmation.

Just FYI.

iizbeastie · #58 01-26-2009, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberRoo

Update:
About six months ago I blew up my rear differential. It started making noises a week prior. A couple days before death I got a slight vibration, and then it suddenly got very bad climbing a hill. I drove about a 1/4 mile with my butt tingling from the vibration, and about a hundred feet with my tooth fillings coming loose.

Can you describe that vibration?.... A couple days ago I started getting a suspect 'vibration' ... when I hit 40 I get a low rumble, almost like a tire is out of balance.... when I hit 45, it feels and sounds like I have a 10" sub in the back putting out a nice smooth tone....

huck369 · #59 01-26-2009, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iizbeastie

Can you describe that vibration?.... A couple days ago I started getting a suspect 'vibration' ... when I hit 40 I get a low rumble, almost like a tire is out of balance.... when I hit 45, it feels and sounds like I have a 10" sub in the back putting out a nice smooth tone....

Sounds like a bad wheel bearing to me....

I hate to hear that about you read diff...mine is holding up fine....but I don't abuse it (much

)

UberRoo · #60 01-27-2009, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iizbeastie

Can you describe that vibration?.... A couple days ago I started getting a suspect 'vibration' ... when I hit 40 I get a low rumble, almost like a tire is out of balance.... when I hit 45, it feels and sounds like I have a 10" sub in the back putting out a nice smooth tone....

It's been long enough now that I don't remember the exact symptoms, but here's how I recall them:

At first it sounded very similar to a failing wheel bearing, but not quite the same. The tone was somewhere between the growl of a wheel bearing and a sine wave tone from subwoofer. Initially it would go away under light load conditions, and later it would only go away under no load or deceleration. That's an odd, but conceivable symptom for a failing wheel bearing.

It seemed more probable to me that the idler bearing bushing in the drive shaft was failing. I've had those fail in my L-body station wagons, and they produce similar symptoms. The catch is that this was a high speed problem, and the idler bearing bushings were a low speed problem that only manifested under heavy load.

I've never experienced a differential failure, so even though the possibility occurred to me, I dismissed it as being improbable. I'm surprised how much of the vibration translated to the body of the vehicle. How much that may have fatigued other driveline components, I shudder to think. (Get it? Shudder? Ha.) When the symptoms got bad enough to worry me, it failed within about fifty miles. When I say worrisome, I mean that the sound became a vibration that I could feel in my seat. About five miles before it quit, I knew that the accelerating rate of failure would mean I wasn't going to make it home.

Currently, I can reverse pretty well. Going forward, I move about three or four feet and everything binds up. If I give it enough throttle, it'll lurch forward, produce a horrible thunk, and bind up again. At fourty miles per hour, when it finally gave up, the vibration was so bad I'm surprised there wasn't some spectacular failure of something.

The real key was that the symptoms manifest under load, not speed. Certain speeds produced a more pronounced noise and vibration, but it always went away under deceleration. An easy check would be to pull the plug on the differential and drop in a magnet. The drain plug actually has a magnet on it, but pulling that commits you to more than just a look and see.

On my car, I have a lot of junk in the way of the differential cover so I have to drop the entire mustache bar to pull the plugs, thus part of the reason I delayed an inspection. (The main reason is that I'm lazy.) I have spare vehicles, wasn't planning any long road trips, and have means of recovery. I could afford a catastrophic failure. For me, there's no point in replacing a part before it fails, and plenty of reasons to learn all about the modes of failure, the symptoms, and how much life you can extract from a dying component, which is usually a lot more than you'd expect, but not in this case.

I hope my inane ramblings help. Pull the plug. Dunk a magnet. That ought to clear it up. Otherwise, rotating your tires will isolate a bad one. (Although it's usually easiest to just have your tire shop check the balance and rotate them.) I'd suspect the notorious rear wheel bearings in your case, depending on how smooth or "growly" the tone of that ten-inch sub.